Cluster Core Dynamics in the Galactic Center

Steven J. Berukoff and Bradley M.S. Hansen


(1) Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA

Paper: ApJ, Oct 2006, in press

EPrint Server: astro-ph/060780


Abstract:

We present results of N-body simulations aimed at understanding the dynamics of young stars near the Galactic center. Specifically, we model the inspiral of a cluster core containing an intermediate mass black hole and N 50 cluster stars in the gravitational potential of a supermassive black hole. We first study the elliptic three-body problem to isolate issues of tidal stripping and subsequent scattering, followed by full N-body simulations to treat the internal dynamics consistently. We find that our simulations reproduce several dynamical features of the observed population. These include the observed inner edge of the claimed clockwise disk, as well as the thickness of said disk. We find that high density clumps, such as that claimed for IRS13E, also result generically from our simulations. However, not all features of the observations are reproduced. In particular, the surface density profile of the simulated disk scales as SIGMA \propto r-0.75, which is considerably shallower than that observed. Further, at no point is any significant counter-rotating population formed.


Preprints available from the authors at steveb@physics.ucla.edu , or the raw TeX (no figures) if you click here.

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